# MiniMax M3 vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for MiniMax M3 and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/minimax-m3-vs-qwen3-6-35b-a3b
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 9
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

MiniMax M3 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- MiniMax M3 has the higher overall point estimate 54.94 to 43.79. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 93.8 for MiniMax M3 and 78.3 for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is NL2Repo in Coding, with scores of 42.1% and 29.4%.
- MiniMax M3 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | MiniMax | Alibaba |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 262K |
| Overall Score | 54.94 | 43.79 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 27 | 42 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.30 / $1.20 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 39.4 (Supported · #67/126)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 30.1 (Estimated · #92/126)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 66.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | 83.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 70.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 74.2% | 62.8% | MiniMax M3 |
| Claw-Eval | 74.5% | 68.7% | MiniMax M3 |
| BankerToolBench | 76.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | 19.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 53.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 51.5% | Coming soon |
| QwenClawBench | Coming soon | 52.6% | Coming soon |
| QwenWebBench | Coming soon | 1397 | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 67.2% | Coming soon |
| VITA-Bench | Coming soon | 35.6% | Coming soon |
| DeepPlanning | Coming soon | 25.9% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon | Coming soon | 26.9% | Coming soon |
| WideResearch | Coming soon | 60.1% | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | Coming soon | 42.65% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 36.5 (Supported · #73/149)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 31.6 (Estimated · #91/149)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.5% | 73.4% | MiniMax M3 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 59% | 49.5% | MiniMax M3 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 66.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | 42.1% | 29.4% | MiniMax M3 |
| VIBE V2 | 50.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SVG-Bench | 63.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| KernelBench Hard | 28.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | 48.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 75.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 67.2% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 51.5% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | Coming soon | 80.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 82.9 (#5/29)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 75.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 61.5 (#43/54)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 66.4 (#40/54)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| OfficeQA Pro | 45.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench 1.5 | 91.6% | 89.9% | MiniMax M3 |
| MMMU-Pro | 78.1% | 75.3% | MiniMax M3 |
| VideoMMMU | 84.6% | 83.7% | MiniMax M3 |
| Video-MME (with subtitle) | 85.4% | 86.6% | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B |
| MMMU | Coming soon | 81.7% | Coming soon |
| RealWorldQA | Coming soon | 85.3% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 78% | Coming soon |
| SimpleVQA | Coming soon | 58.9% | Coming soon |
| CC-OCR | Coming soon | 81.9% | Coming soon |
| AI2D_TEST | Coming soon | 92.7% | Coming soon |
| RefCOCO (avg) | Coming soon | 92.0% | Coming soon |
| ODINW13 | Coming soon | 50.8% | Coming soon |
| Video-MME (w/o subtitle) | Coming soon | 82.5% | Coming soon |
| MLVU (M-Avg) | Coming soon | 86.2% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 49.6 (Supported · #81/182)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 42.9 (Estimated · #106/182)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 92.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 84.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 85.2% | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | Coming soon | 64.7% | Coming soon |
| C-Eval | Coming soon | 90% | Coming soon |
| GPQA | Coming soon | 86% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 21.4% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: 93.8 (#5/146)
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 78.3 (#59/146)

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- MiniMax M3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B public-lane score: 58.4 (#10/12)

| Benchmark | MiniMax M3 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| USAMO 2026 | 85.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | Coming soon | 90.7% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Nov 2025 | Coming soon | 89.1% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 83.6% | Coming soon |
| MMAnswerBench | Coming soon | 78.9% | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 92.7% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | Coming soon | 20.351% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, MiniMax M3 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

MiniMax M3 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between MiniMax M3 and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 93.8 for MiniMax M3 and 78.3 for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

### How many benchmarks does MiniMax M3 cover on BenchLM?

MiniMax M3 currently has 27 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Qwen3.6-35B-A3B cover on BenchLM?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B currently has 42 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

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- [Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-qwen3-6-35b-a3b)
- [MiniMax M3 vs GPT-6.1 Sol](/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-minimax-m3)
- [Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs GPT-6.1 Sol](/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-qwen3-6-35b-a3b)

## Explore More

- [MiniMax M3 profile](/models/minimax-m3)
- [Qwen3.6-35B-A3B profile](/models/qwen3-6-35b-a3b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)